A fallout-flavored romance; nods to Genesis' song, "Supper's Ready." For SB. |
The puddles splashed phosphorous at his heels with each optimistic step. With his strange-thorned flowers held firmly in hand, he merrily jaunted over gaps and wreckage as if they were a twisted steel hopscotch course. The sky flamed and spun with charming late-winter ashfall, pelleting little holes in the low-loitering cloud spread. The vagrants these days blended right in with the wealthier remains scattered about the sidewalks and shrapneled streets, craning their kinked necks to offer a smile and blind-eye wink to the man of unbroken stride. Something about the iridescent liquids collected in the potholes seemed more vibrant today - a shifting of all the more positive colors in the spectrum, an occasional bubble boiling its way excitedly to the top to greet the young man - bursting with joy afterward, and pock-marking the pavement with tiny hissing holes. The soothing orange pulse of the clouds cast the ragged skyline into relief - a city's bad haircut. White, torn sheets billowed out from the blasted windows of floors still livable, waving hello to the romantic fellow down below. He smiled at everything and everyone, as long as a proper amount of eyes met his. As he strolled along further, a badgeless police officer and his partner hustled along a raving foam-jawed man of patchwork skin and checkered hair. They stopped to gaze, smirking, upon the emotion they recognized as love most enduring. Sodium lights flickered as their wires soaked up the last dollops of power in the city to provide weak but hopeful light, sensors joyfully oblivious to the fact that it was still day. They lit the path to a door, far ahead still, held quite nicely in place by a few bits of cord and wood. The molting ravens cawed arrival to all in an earshot, as they swooped and danced around what someday would be the world's happiest carrion. With a shake of his clothing, the lightly-scorched free hand came poised before the sturdiest-looking part of the door and knocked upon it, unsettling little flakes of black-burnt wood and smudging his knuckles with ash. The door opened with unsteady swing, hinges gladly bearing the strain for this one - and there she was: brighter than the impact, warmer than the new winters, as beautiful as the sight of her name on a list of survivors. Her smile dismissed the burns in her garments and on her skin. His returning gaze was one of a long-standing love, fermented in the measly span of one little armageddon. "Hey, babe - I'm back." The kiss, a little chapped, and the embrace, scratchy with the grit of the city's air, made up for even the most unimpressive greeting. He remembered the flowers - those thorns were nasty, but these colors were new. They relayed from man, to woman, to table, as the couple made dinner plans. |